Fierce Player (Sierra Pride Book 4) (2 page)

Wow. He’d never been so speechless in front of a girl before, and he stared after her longingly, wishing he could have made her listen to him for a second. Her pink cheeks—had he embarrassed her?

As he retrieved his cart, he saw that the burly guy in the window seat had stood up and was typing something into his phone, looking in the direction the girl had gone.

Maverick wondered if that was part of her game, too.

He had the feeling it probably wasn’t.

Chapter Four

That librarian had gotten to her. He of the hipster glasses and button-up shirt and perfectly-fitting jeans. Her face still felt hot. She didn’t like breaking the rules, but she’d really thought it wouldn’t matter, and while she’d been indignant at first, then she felt ashamed. Blame it on her upbringing. People had to follow the rules and do the right thing, and Kate felt that in this instance, she hadn’t.

Now outside and away from the troublesome librarian, Kate pulled her jacket tighter. November was chilly but bearable in this part of the foothills. The sky was gray, but the grass on campus was mostly green except for a few patches still recovering from the drought. The few students around were hurrying from one class to another, or off to meet up with friends for the evening.

Not for the first time, Kate wished Trina still lived on campus. She’d gone off to get a job with Jumpana Games as soon as she’d graduated last year, leaving Kate alone as the solitary gamer, but at least Trina liked brainstorming ideas and fixes for their independent projects. Unfortunately, Kate couldn’t concentrate in her crappy apartment. She needed to be out and about in order to think things through and really get involved in her work. And she was already hyped up on caffeine, so she hadn’t wanted to hit a coffee shop.

Apparently, the library was out. For, like, ever.

She walked faster. Light was fading fast—it was past dinner time, and last night’s left-over risotto was waiting for her in the fridge.

It was getting cold, too. Kate dug a fluorescent green beanie out of her messenger bag. Her apartment was a few blocks away from campus—cheaper than on-campus housing, but expensive enough that she had to borrow money from her mom to afford it. If she worked hard on this game and had a killer design, she might be able to get a decent job at a company like Trina had done, and she’d be able to afford this apartment on her own, and pay her mom back over time.

When she paused to put her beanie on, she caught movement from the corner of her eye. A huge man stood a few feet behind her, looking in a shop window. He looked familiar, with those heavy eyebrows and his huge form. She took a few strides forward, then stopped suddenly to pretend to tie her shoe.

The man hadn’t moved an inch. Damn, she couldn’t be this freaked out all the time. He wasn’t after her—nobody was after her. How narcissistic was she, anyway? It was her mom who had the dangerous job that pissed people off—nobody cared about Kate.

Still, she was freaked out. She pulled out her phone and called Trina back.

“Hey girl, ready to go over that level again?”

“Nah, I’m walking home. But maybe we could talk about your game while I walk.”

Trina launched into some new characters she wanted to add, keeping Kate almost distracted. By the time Kate walked inside her apartment, Trina had run out of things to say, and Kate could tell that she wanted to get back to her computer.

“Chat later?” Kate asked.

“Sure thing. Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Kate said. “Why?”

“I don’t know. You sound…off.”

“I was walking fast. It’s cold out there.”

They got off the phone, and Kate slammed the deadbolt into place behind her. Surveying her empty apartment, she wondered again why she hadn’t searched for a roommate. It would’ve saved a ton of money, and she was barely here anyway. But when she was here, she wanted to be completely alone. She’d never found a roommate, not even Trina, who didn’t get on her nerves some of the time. While Trina understood Kate’s dedication to developing games, nobody else seemed to, and even Trina had wanted her to come out and party from time to time. Not Kate’s scene.

She moved toward the fridge to get out that risotto. Some food, a beer, maybe some TV would help her feel like things were normal again.

Her phone rang, and she jumped, her heart beating fast in her chest.

Dammit, what was wrong with her? She was tired of feeling jumpy, tired of imagining that people were following her. Maybe she’d look into seeing a campus therapist after Thanksgiving break. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to someone about all this.

Her phone rang again before she reached for it.

“Hey, Mom,” she said. Her heart was still beating rapidly, and she tried to keep her voice steady.

Her mom’s instincts were strong, though. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Kate laughed. “The phone startled me, that’s all.”

“So everything’s okay?”

Her mom was always worrying about Kate, when it should have been the other way around. It was her mom who had the angry corporate types trying to keep her from bringing up evidence against them.

“Yeah, everything’s great. My new game is coming along, and Trina’s agreed to help me find a new illustrator.”

“That’s great,” her mom said. “Fantastic. I’m glad everything’s going so well.”

Her mom sounded almost a little wistful, and Kate felt a moment of alarm. “What’s going on with you?” she asked.

“Oh, we’re gearing into the final stages of the case development. It’s—it’s a little intense here.”

Her mom owned a consulting firm that helped law offices bring cases against corporations for using environmentally unsound practices. She’d become one of the most loved and hated environmentalists on the west coast, and she’d pissed off a lot of big fish.

“Intense? Are people threatening you with cases of their own again?” Her mom’s job was stressful, and Kate knew she couldn’t live that kind of life. No matter how passionate Kate was about the environment, she’d never be able to handle the lawsuits and policies and the constant backlash from businesses that didn’t want to change their ways.

One time, it hadn’t just been threats of cases against her mom. Kate remembered all too well a few years back, when her mom had received threatening mail and phone calls. Her mom had installed a fancy alarm system they could barely afford, and police cars took more frequent trips up and down their street.

No wonder Kate was a paranoid person—she’d seen scare tactics and she’d seen those kinds of threats firsthand.

“As soon as all the evidence is in for the case, things will settle down,” her mom said. “But I just realized Thanksgiving is next week.”

“Aw, Mom, not again!” Worrying about her mom was bad enough on its own. The other thing her mom’s job took was holidays.

“I will do everything in my power to be around and free to spend Christmas with you, Kate, like always. And of course you can come home for Thanksgiving break, but just know you’ll mostly have the house to yourself.”

“And pizza for Thanksgiving dinner,” Kate muttered. “Let me think about it. If you’re not going to be around, I may as well stay here, I guess. Save me the trip.”

“It’s up to you, sweetie,” her mom said.

Did she actually sound hopeful? “You don’t want me to come down,” Kate said.

“No, of course I do! It’s just very…tense here. Nothing to be alarmed over, but it’s tense. And the less you’re around, the less you’ll be bothered by all of it.”

So it was true—her mom would rather Kate stayed here. Kate tried not to take it personally, but this kind of thing happened all the time, usually around some kind of school vacation when the two of them should have been spending time together. In fact, last summer her mom had been working on gathering evidence for a case—probably the same one.

“Is this still Exogenetics?” Kate asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“They always come first, don’t they?” Kate couldn’t help the bitter tone in her voice.

“Please don’t be unfair about this. There are all kinds of people living in a toxic environment because ESC won’t take their wallets out of their asses and fund recovery…”

Kate tuned her mom out, gripping her phone until her knuckles turned white. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. “Look, Mom, I gotta go. My dinner’s getting cold. I’ll stick around here next week for Thanksgiving, but I swear to you, if you don’t take a whole week off for Christmas, I…I…won’t recycle for a month.”

Her mom gasped in outrage, and then they both cracked up laughing. “I love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

She ended the call and pulled her risotto out of the fridge, ignoring her pang of guilt for the white lie she’d told about it to get off the phone.

Looked like she’d have another lonely Thanksgiving. Dammit.

Chapter Five

The whole way back to Findley, Maverick had played his music loud. Led Zeppelin, Cream, CCR. The three-hour drive back to his family’s ranch felt like a fucking eternity, because he couldn’t get that girl out of his head.

And nothing he told himself could erase the shame he’d felt in following her home. She hadn’t seen him, he’d made sure of that, but it still hadn’t felt right. He could scent her fear, but he’d rationalized his actions. He was checking up on her. Making sure she was okay, because that strange guy in the library had triggered all of Maverick’s instincts. The guy had left the library soon after the girl, and he’d followed her, too. Maverick didn’t see him, but he could smell him around.

Even though the guy hadn’t done anything except follow her, Maverick had kept watch, creeping from building to building. He’d thought of shifting to his mountain lion form, but there were still other people on campus, and he didn’t want to incite terror.

Apparently he was only willing to risk inciting fear in the woman who smelled like springtime.

Because if he were honest with himself, he’d admit that it wasn’t so much he was protecting her. It was more that he was a predator following the trail of prey too tantalizing to ignore. Everything about her captivated him—from her pink hair, to her delicious-looking ears, to that tiny tattoo on her wrist. And her scent—he wanted to roll around in it.

Now, he felt like he’d left her unprotected. But it was Thanksgiving break, and his plan all along had been to go home, because he missed his family and his land more than he could bear.

This would be yet another Thanksgiving without their twin sisters, Cora and Justine. Aunt Nan had sent them off a couple of years ago—or was it three?—with strict instructions that the brothers not contact them. Every time Maverick brought them up, Gabriel didn’t want to talk about it. They were only two years older than Maverick, the closest in age to him of all his siblings. He’d felt adrift for a long time after they left.

So now Maverick was worried about three young women—Cora, Justine, and the girl from the library.

He pulled into the driveway of the family ranch. A blond six-year-old stood on the front porch, waving maniacally, held in place by her mother’s grip on the back of her shirt. Maverick parked and came running up the porch. He picked up the girl and threw her in the air.

“Uncle Mav!” she squealed.

“Hey, Chloe,” he said. “You’re like a foot taller, girl.”

Chloe’s hair was wavy like her mom’s, but she was stretching out to be lean and muscular like Jude.

Ava, Chloe’s mom, pulled Maverick into a hug. Jude gave him a hug next, grabbing his neck and pulling him in.

“Glad you’re here, Mav,” Jude said.

“It’s good to see you all.” Maverick followed them into the house, where everyone else was lounging and eating pizza. After greeting his brothers and their mates, he sat down with a slice and tried to focus on the football game.

That woman was stuck in his head, though. Abruptly, he stood up. “I’m going out to the shop.”

“What?” his oldest brother, Gabriel, said. “You just got here.”

“I have a project I want to work on.” It wasn’t a lie, because Maverick always had a project he wanted to work on.

“He’s like you,” Jude said to Ava. “Antisocial and rushing away to work on some project.”

“An artist has to work when inspiration strikes,” Ava said, sticking her tongue out at Jude.

Gabriel’s eyes were narrowed at Maverick. “It’s like you missed your tools more than us.”

“That’s because he
is
a tool,” Blake said with a laugh. “Let him go. More pizza for the rest of us.”

Maverick swiped three slices of pepperoni on his way out, just to prove Blake wrong. But he knew the “normal” Maverick would have come up with some kind of retort about tools.
Takes one to know one
. Or,
You’re just jealous because my tool is bigger than yours
.

Nope. None of those were good. He was definitely off his game.

He stacked his pizza slices one on top of the other and opened his mouth wide for a bite. Although he didn’t feel like eating, he couldn’t just leave them around to attract vermin.

The shop was an insulated shed next to their garage. It had been their dad’s favorite place when he was alive, and Maverick liked to imagine that it still smelled like Dad. Maverick had never had a name for their dad’s scent, just impressions. Strong. Leader. Protection. He and their mom had died when Maverick was six, and this had become Maverick’s favorite place. It hadn’t taken long for him to start teaching himself to use his dad’s woodworking tools. He could often lose himself in the work, and forget whatever things were bothering him. Justine and Cora being gone. Leaving that girl behind.

Fuck it. He didn’t even get as far as picking up his circular saw to work on the bench he’d left in progress the last time he was home.

He stood in the doorway and finished his pizza, then turned and went back to the house. When he stepped through the slider and into the living room, everyone turned to look at him.

“Dude, what’s wrong with you?” Gabriel asked.

“What? Nothing. I just didn’t feel like working.” Problem was, he didn’t feel like doing anything. Nothing felt right. He came around the couch to sit down, and stared resolutely at the screen.